What Is Corn Starch?

Corn starch is extracted from corn grain and appears as a white or off-white, odorless, tasteless powder. Corn starch is a polysaccharide polymer compound, exiting in amylose and amylopectin forms. The domestic production and consumption of corn starch is huge, and the production has exceeded 33 million tons per year. The huge consumption of corn starch is thanks to its wide usage in food, papermaking, chemical, pharmaceutical, textile, and other industries.

Fig.1 The amylopectin and amylose forms of corn starch. (Willfahrt, et al., 2019)

Characterization of the Maize Starch

Maize is one of the main cash crops in China. Starch exists in the endosperm in the form of starch grains with spherical structures, which is often applied to starch manufacture because of its huge yield and high starch content (600g / kg). The amylose content of ordinary corn is generally between 16% and 35%. Most of the starch is amylopectin, while waxy corn (less than 16% amylose content) contains nearly 100%. Because corn starch has a different molecular structure and physical and chemical properties than other plant starch, its production, development, and utilization play a very important role in the corn processing industry.

Fig.2 The general aspect of the ozonation (left) and ultrasound (right) systems. (Castanha, et al.,2019)

How to Produce Corn Starch?

For prediction, the demand and consumption of corn starch will rise steadily with the quantity supplied. The corn starch production methods are divided into the Dry-Milling Process and the Wet-Milling Process. The Dry-Milling Process is not usually used now because of the low purity of the product. It is of great practical significance to explore more new methods and technologies to support the high-efficiency and low-energy production of corn starch.

Fig.3 A brief wet-milling production process of corn starch. (CD BioGlyco)

Corn Starch Manufacture Service

CD BioGlyco is a professional manufacturer of ingredients and tailors the most suitable solutions to meet the ingredient needs of customers in the food/chemical/pharmaceutical industries. We have the capacity to produce more than 6 million tons of corn starch per year. You will obtain advanced production processes and the best quality raw materials of corn starch. Our corn starch production services include but are not limited to:

Fig.4 Our corn starch manufacture service. (CD BioGlyco)

• Conventional process

In the actual production of corn starch, the conventional process usually includes Dry-Milling Process and Wet-Milling Process.

• Dry-milling process: It is to separate the starch from corn by degerminating, grinding, air sorting, and screening. However, the low purity of the product limits the application of the dry-milling process. The research team at CD BioGlyco is committed to improving the starch purity in the dry-milling process.
• Wet-milling process: This is the most common technology for corn starch production at present. The Conventional Wet-Milling Process mostly uses sulfite as the soaking liquid. Other soaking liquid like lactic acid, sodium hydroxide (Alkali Wet-Milling), and L-cysteine is also used in the industrial extraction of corn starch.
• Novel technologies in wet-milling process
• Microbiological fermentation technology: Microbiological fermentation can improve efficiency and save costs by adding some microorganisms or microbial fermentation products into the soaking liquid.
• Enzymatic Technology: Enzymatic process can improve extraction efficiency by adding a single enzyme or complex preparation into the soaking liquid to promote the separation of protein and starch.
• High-pressure technology: High-pressure process does not need to add sulfite, the soaking time is short, and it is environmentally friendly.
• Two-step soaking process: Two-step soaking process separates the soaking process into water soaking and sulfite/enzyme soaking, which shortens soaking time and improves soaking efficiency.
• Characterization of corn starch structure and properties

Characterization services include amylose and amylopectin content, unit chain distribution of amylopectin, starch granule morphology, particle size analysis, pasting properties, etc. Relevant methods and instruments include the iodine adsorption method, scanning electron microscope (SEM), laser particle size analyzer, rapid visco-analyzer, etc.

• Modification of corn starch

By using Physical Modification, Chemical Modification, Enzymatic Modification, or Genetical Modification technologies, we provide modified corn starch with unique properties for different applications.

Applications

• Corn starch mass production
• Development and optimization of the corn starch production process
• Food ingredient development
• Chemical pharmaceutical ingredient development
• Production of highly viscosity digestible plastic film
• Modifying the corn starch produced multi-grain starch

Advantages

• Application of novel technologies: Microbiological fermentation, high-pressure technology, enzymatic process, two-step soaking process.
• Tailored solutions for different needs: Combining conventional processes with novel technologies, and optimizing the specific process for requirements.
• The new process modification of the corn starch did not affect the surface morphology and crystallinity.

CD BioGlyco provides different ingredient production services and relevant process optimization services. We are your faithful assistant in carbohydrate manufacture. If you are interested in our One-Stop Solution for Carbohydrate Manufacture, please contact us for more information.

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